News:2025-03-01/Report/nddcb-analytical-overview-of-drug-related-arrests-in-sri-lanka-2024

1 March 2025

Report

Sri Lanka·

NDDCB Analytical Overview of Drug-Related Arrests in Sri Lanka 2024

The NDDCB Research Division published its Analytical Overview of drug-related arrests for 2024, documenting 228,450 total arrests — a 41% increase over 2023 (162,088) and a 135% increase over 2020 (97,416). Cannabis-related arrests led all categories with 75,602 (33.1%), narrowly surpassing heroin (75,097; 32.9%), while methamphetamine surged to 68,132 (29.8%), up from just 2,387 in 2020. Notably, the report no longer separates 'Kerala Cannabis' as a distinct category, merging all cannabis arrests into a single figure — a significant methodological change from the 2021 statistics which tracked KG separately. An emerging concern was the first appearance of Kush (synthetic cannabis), with 47 arrests. By district, Colombo dominated with 126,586 total arrests (55%), followed by Gampaha (23,954) and Kandy (7,315). Cannabis seizures reached 8,360 kg, continuing a decline from peaks of 17,607 kg in 2022 and 16,195 kg in 2020. Heroin seizures totalled 832 kg while methamphetamine seizures surged to 1,364 kg.

Source: https://nddcb.gov.lk/Docs/research/Trend_report_Dra_2024.pdf

2025-03-01 Report NDDCB Analytical Overview of Drug-Related Arrests in Sri Lanka 2024 The NDDCB Research Division published its Analytical Overview of drug-related arrests for 2024, documenting 228,450 total arrests — a 41% increase over 2023 (162,088) and a 135% increase over 2020 (97,416). Cannabis-related arrests led all categories with 75,602 (33.1%), narrowly surpassing heroin (75,097; 32.9%), while methamphetamine surged to 68,132 (29.8%), up from just 2,387 in 2020. Notably, the report no longer separates 'Kerala Cannabis' as a distinct category, merging all cannabis arrests into a single figure — a significant methodological change from the 2021 statistics which tracked KG separately. An emerging concern was the first appearance of Kush (synthetic cannabis), with 47 arrests. By district, Colombo dominated with 126,586 total arrests (55%), followed by Gampaha (23,954) and Kandy (7,315). Cannabis seizures reached 8,360 kg, continuing a decline from peaks of 17,607 kg in 2022 and 16,195 kg in 2020. Heroin seizures totalled 832 kg while methamphetamine seizures surged to 1,364 kg. https://nddcb.gov.lk/Docs/research/Trend report Dra 2024.pdf Sri Lanka